The Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee on Monday criticised the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for its move to include 2,400 flats in Dwarka, that have already been allocated to the poor, in its housing scheme for 2014.

Criticising the Central BJP leadership for making “anti-poor decisions”, former West Delhi MP Mahabal Mishra and DPCC chief Arvinder Singh Lovely claimed that the decision to allocate these flats to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) slum-dwellers was taken at the behest of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and was now being reversed by the BJP-led NDA government.

In this connection, a Congress delegation is expected to meet Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung “to demand immediate reversal of the decision and that these 2,400 flats be allotted to the EWS category slum dwellers of Vikaspuri who had been assured of it”.

The DDA issued a clarification stating that the scheme for flats at Dwarka Sector-23 was initially conceived as affordable houses for lower sections of the society, and accordingly, the work was started on ground in 2010.

“During the inspection of a sample flat in 2012, the then Minister of Urban Development had suggested that these flats, when ready, should be used as EWS houses for project-affected persons and rehabilitation of nearby slum-dwellers,” the DDA stated.

The agency said efforts were made to get government funds to subsidise the cost of the flats. However, “in spite of best efforts, the funding was not granted and in the meantime, the policy of insitu development of slum-clusters was also initiated”, DDA said.

DDA said, during the course of construction of these houses, and in view of the insitu rehabilitation of slum-clusters having being initiated, certain specifications with respect to these flats at Dwarka were changed so that houses could be allotted to lower strata of society as affordable houses instead of for rehabilitation.